


repulsion

by orphan_account



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, In Kaz’s POV, Kaz Is Having A Bad Time, Sleep Paralysis, Touch-Repulsed Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 09:03:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This story is part of the LLF Comment Project (including the LLF Comment Builder), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:Short commentsLong commentsQuestions“<3” as extra kudosReader-reader interactionThis author replies to comments.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	repulsion

He stares at his hands, palms up, thinking on how she’d propelled him towards removing the gloves. 

On the bed, he’d come close enough to graze his mouth over the crown of her head, breathing in. 

She’d moved to hold him then, and he’d shocked the both of them with a strangled shout, twisting the side of his head into the muted wallpaper, contorting into some hateful monster. 

Rather than lamenting the horrid transformation, Inej had fashioned her side of the bed into a haphazard fortress, leaving enough of the bedsheets for Kaz to violently burrow beneath, half of his right foot exposed to the shredded wind leaking through the slanted windowpane.

He might have at least thanked her for her kindness. Hadn’t he meant to the following day, when he woke to find his shirt pressed, pants creased and undergarments wrung out in rainwater?

That thoughtless kindness had winded his lungs, left him smothered in guilt. He couldn’t bear to welcome her when, inevitably, she returned at nightfall after a productive day’s work.

She has yet to come back, this being a longer night. He muses over what sort of picture he’d paint if, upon her entry, she’d find him moaning her name between splayed, bare fingers while his free hand fucked himself open.

“You didn’t lock the door, Kaz.”

He turns to her, standing on the stairs, one hand parting dark hair, the other hesitating on the banister. Her gaze, seeping such a profound lack of judgment, shakes him down to the core, and he coils his gloved right hand on the bedspread.

His eyes widen briefly when he says, “We’re in Hell.”

Her brow twitches, confusion apparent, and she moves to sit with him on the end of the bed, her left hand outspread inches from his fist. Every movement echoes with smooth fabric nudging against itself. He wants to run his fingers over the handiwork of her garments, crush the seams in his palms, crumple them up and over her head.

She speaks, and any other fuck might gesture or command her to  _ speak up _ ! But he’s long been an eager pupil when it comes to hearing what the braying, obstreperous riffraff do not.

“Why not stay?” 

_ We’ve hung around long enough in one another’s heads, sought out one another’s faceless captors destroying our freedom _ .

To that end, he understands her logic.

But to twist in his sleep day in and day out with the knowledge that she’s chosen his Hell to inhabit over someone’s haven...If he could scrape his teeth through cartilage and bite through the pulp of his heart to rid himself of that truth, he wouldn’t hesitate.

“You’re overthinking this,” she says, her braid unravelling down her left shoulder.

“Don’t expect me stop, Inej.” He curves the first two fingers of his right hand over her wrist, a phantom’s kiss. “I would save you again, even a third time, and I’d only consider stopping if you drowned me six bodies deep.”

“You think I  _ want _ that for you?”

He’s pictured nothing but his own death for the past four nights; he hasn’t thought to wake her, preferring to rip himself from the bed to stew in paralysis on the floor, gaping at a gargantuan abomination looming above him. It spits and laughs and taunts him until he can’t breathe;  _ what benevolence, preventing her from selling herself. You’re doubtless aware that now she belongs to  _ you _ . Ownership begets ownership, you dirtyhanded  _ predator _ . _

“Kaz, for the love of Saints, listen to me!” 

They’ve blared through her words again, his nightmares. Frowning, edging his gloved left hand over his scalp, he bends his head low.

Her voice quavering, her breath threads up the fine hairs on the back of his neck. “I will freely admit that I’m still reconciling with the debt our situation affords.” 

He steadies himself with an intensive study of his hands, flexing his gloved knuckles, admiring the durable fabric solely responsible for painting his pigment the exact shade of the bedsheets. Greying, pale, decayed.

Without meeting his gaze, she says, “I never wanted to smite you with vicious tormentors of the night.” 

He stares at her now, at the divot of worry etched through her brow.  _ How can you blame yourself? Can you begin to comprehend what I would endure for you? _

Eyes on her lips, in spite of himself, he says, “Then have me.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project (including the LLF Comment Builder), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:  
Short comments  
Long comments  
Questions  
“<3” as extra kudos  
Reader-reader interaction  
This author replies to comments.


End file.
